Lists of Nobel Prizes and Laureates

Lists of Nobel Prizes and Laureates

When Dr. Kendall and I were
asked to tell you of our recent trip to Stockholm, we wondered at
first whether it would be entirely proper for us to discuss
publicly an event in which we participated so personally. But on
second thought, it seemed appropriate that we make to you our
staff colleagues, some report of the 1950 Festival because Dr.
Kendall and I went to Sweden as representatives of the Mayo
Clinic, the Mayo Foundation and their allied institutions. Were
always happily and proudly conscious of that fact. In our
opinion, the awards we received belong truly to all the men and
women of the Mayo Clinic because it was the spirit of
co-operative endeavor, the fundamental credo of this institution,
which made possible the work which resulted in our trip to
Stockholm. My regret is that those who first engendered that
spirit, Dr. Will Mayo and Dr. Charlie Mayo, are not here
tonight.

At the Mayo Clinic no man works alone, and
through the several years during which I have been occupied with
the problem of my special interest, I have had the sustained and
loyal support of the entire staff, especially of the Board of
Governors and of its Research Administrative Committee. If I were
to mention a few individual names I would recall the long hours
of helpful discussions and the other assistance which I received
from Drs. Alvarez, Bollman, Butsch, Comfort, Drips, Lundy,
Magath, Mason, McKenzie, Mussey, Osterberg, Power, Randall,
Rynearson, Sanford, Snell and Sprague, as they and other
associates gave me encouragement in my repeated attempts to
identify the helpful 'substance X' of jaundice and pregnancy.

Most significant has been my association
with Drs. Kendall, Slocumb and Polley. I know that the names of
Charles Slowcomb and Howard Polley will always be associated in
your minds with the award and with the events which I shall now
describe. Permit me to tell the story of the 1950 Nobel Festival
in an informal, and sometimes in a rather personal, manner.

Mrs. Hench, her mother – Mrs. John H.
Kahler, our 7-year-old son, John, and I were joined in New York
City by our three older children, Mary, Kahler and Susan. After a
pleasant crossing on the Liberté and after twenty busy hours
in Paris, we took the Nord Express for the thirty-six-hour
journey from Paris to Stockholm. As we paused in the station at
Copenhagen, we were met by a group of Danish friends, officers of
the Danish Society for Rheumatology and their wives, who
presented my ladies with flowers and made us feel very
welcome.

Arrival in Stockholm

On Friday morning, December 8, our train
approached Stockholm through a countryside freshly covered by a
heavy snowfall. Every scene looked like a Christmas card. It was
quite sunny but cold. At the station we were met by a
representative of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and
one from the American Embassy, by Professors Göran
Liljestrand and Nanna Svartz of Kungl. Karolinska
Mediko-Kirurgiska Institutet (The Royal Caroline
Medico-Chirurgical Institute) and by Docent Erik Jonsson, of
Södersjukhuset.

From the station we were driven to the
Grand Hôtel, which was being taken over by the new and old
Nobel laureates and their families. To our party were assigned
four front rooms and a parlor. From our third-floor windows we
had a magnificent view. Stockholm, a city of 730,000 persons, is
built on islands and peninsulas, with many expanses of water.
Just opposite us and across the Strömmen inlet was the Royal
Palace, the Riksdaghus and the nearby Royal Opera House.

In our rooms we found many invitations and
the official instructions as to what we had to do, where we
should be and what we should wear during the next four days. To
each of the new laureates and his family was assigned an
attaché from the Swedish Foreign Office who served as escort
and aide for the next few days. Our courteous escort was Mr.
Gunnar Ljungdahl, who was of great assistance to us during our
stay in Stockholm.

Paying their hosts a real compliment.
Philip Hench (center) with his family during the Nobel Prize
Award Ceremony in Stockholm.

To our rooms came each day a small army of
friendly newspaper folk who seemed to be fascinated by the fact
that such a large family had journeyed so far to the Nobel
Festival. Two reporters were especially impressed by the
inclusion of my wife's mother, and one newspaper headline read
"Mother-in-law Attends Nobel Festival." When, five weeks earlier,
Dr. Hilding Bergstrand, rector of the Caroline Institute, had
invited my family to the ceremony, I had cabled our acceptance
gladly, but with some misgivings, lest it be considered
presumptuous for me to bring the whole family. But we soon
discovered happily that they all, our official hosts of the Nobel
Foundation and of the Caroline Institute, the newsfolk and the
various Swedish friends we met, felt that we had paid them a real
compliment in bringing the whole family. Soon our four children,
especially 7-year-old John, and the charming, 17-year-old
daughters of Dr. Reichstein and the American novelist, Mr.
William
Faulkner, became the delight and daily target of the
reporters and news photographers, who understandingly became much
more interested in these young people than in the older
guests.

Saturday, 9 December

The Nobel Festival of 1950 was an event of
special significance, for it commemorated the fiftieth
anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Prizes. Invitations to
the celebration had been sent to each of the (circa) 100 living
laureates of previous years, and about 25 of them were on hand.
(Curiously, no former winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
was present.)

On the next afternoon, Saturday, came our
first chance to meet our hosts and these laureates at a reception
at the Nobel Foundation House. Presiding, at this colorful
reception were the councillors of the Nobel Foundation and the
Foundation's president, His Excellency, Dr. Lars Birger Ekeberg,
the chief marshall of the Swedish Court, a tall distinguished man
with a crown of white hair.

During the dinner Professor Bergstrand,
rector of the Caroline Institute, in a brief speech graciously
welcomed the senior laureates and then proposed a toast in honor
of the 3 new ones to which the latter responded.

Sunday, 10 December

The next day, Sunday, 10 December, was the
principal day, the anniversary death of Alfred Nobel in 1896. The
"Solemn Festival of the Nobel Foundation," as it is called, was
to be held in the Concert Hall from 4 to 6:30 p.m., then in the
City Hall from 7 p.m. Until about 2 a.m.

At 11 o'clock Sunday morning, the old and
new laureates went with officials of the Nobel Foundation to lay
wreaths on the grave of Nobel in the North Cemetery. Spokesman at
the brief but impressive ceremony was Sir Lawrence Bragg of Great
Britain, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915.

On returning from the cemetery, we were
taken about noon to the Concert Hall to receive instructions as
to how to conduct ourselves at the afternoon ceremony. As we
entered the main hall we found workmen preparing the great
auditorium, arranging the decorations, flowers and seating.
Television operators were testing their apparatus for the first
public demonstration of television in Sweden. A television
screen, placed on the edge of the platform, reflected their
manipulations. As the laureates and their escorts entered, one of
the television staff turned his camera on them. The distinguished
laureates, like a group of American youngsters, became fascinated
as they saw themselves and their companions on the screen. Most
of the European laureates probably were seeing television for the
first time. The laureates in physics, some of whom probably
discovered some of the fundamental principles used in radio and
television, appeared to be as fascinated as the rest.

When order was restored, the laureates were
told where to assemble, where to march onto the platform, where
and when to make the prescribed three "reverences" to the King
and one to the audience, and where each would sit. Apparently,
some of the men were out of practice in bowing to royalty and it
was amusing to see dignified men practicing nodding solemnly to
an empty chair, often in too stilted or too vigorous a fashion at
first, then in a more subtle, polished manner. Apparently, Sir
Henry Dale was not satisfied with the short, unsophisticated nods
which Dr. Kendall and I were making, for he came over to us,
chuckled and said "For this one afternoon you two fellows will
just have to lay aside your democratic principles, and really
throw yourselves into this thing!" After a quick lunch in our
hotel rooms, we all dressed in formal attire.

"The Solemn Festival of the Nobel Foundation"

Sharply at 3:15 p.m. the various
attachés from the Swedish Foreign Office came for their
respective laureates and their families. The crowds of people
gathered outside the hotel, along the streets to the Concert Hall
and especially in the square outside the hall provided a very
friendly atmosphere for the laureates and their families, but
also produced what my daughters Mary and Susan described as a
pleasantly uneasy feeling of being 'Queen for a Day'.

Meeting in a room on the mezzanine floor,
the laureates were lined up, the new ones first, each with an
escort from the appropriate awarding-institution. As I took my
place beside my escort, Dr. Nils Antoni, professor of neurology
at the Caroline Institute, I met Dr. Tadeus Reichstein, of
Switzerland, for the first time. His airplane had been long been
delayed by bad weather, and he and his daughter Ruth had arrived
just an hour previously. His wife, on another plane, turned back
and unfortunately, never did arrive. Behind the new laureates
came the older laureates; on the basis of the year of his award,
the senior laureate was Professor Max von Laue of Germany,
who had won the physics prize thirty-six years before (1914).

When all were gathered the laureates and
their escorts proceeded downstairs to an anteroom offstage, where
an official photograph of the new recipients was quickly taken.
The three awarding faculties were already on stage. After a few
moments, promptly at 4:00, was heard a loud fanfare of trumpets
announcing the entry of the King and the royal family, who
proceeded to their seats as an orchestra played "The King's
Anthem." Then another loud and exciting fanfare provided the
signal for the laureates to make their entrance. Two tall doors
at the rear center of the platform were opened with ceremonial
slowness by uniformed ushers. Then, to the music of the Concert
Hall orchestra, and as the King and the assemblage rose, the
laureates marched onto the stage, stood for a moment in front of
their seats, made their first reverence to the King, and sat
down.

On either side of the platform were seated
the officers and councillors of the Nobel Foundation and the
faculties or members of the three prize-awarding bodies in
Sweden: the Royal Swedish Academy of Science (physics and
chemistry), the Royal Caroline Medico-Chirurgical Institute
(physiology and medicine), and the Swedish Academy (literature).
Seated obliquely in front were, on the audience's right, the
sponsors who were to read the citations for each prize; on the
left, the 8 new pristagarna (prize takers), as they are called in
Sweden.2 Behind the latter
were seated, in left front seats, 25 laureates of previous
years,3 making a total of 33
winners. Such a number will hardly be assembled again until the
seventy-fifth or one hundredth festival, twenty-five or fifty
years from now.

If, as the papers said, the assemblage on
the stage provided a dignified showing, the view from the
platform was equally impressive. Those on the stage saw 2,000
people in formal attire, many wearing, colorful ribbons and
decorations. The auditorium was packed; extra seats completely
filled the aisles.

The 50th anniversary of the Nobel Prize
Award Ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall in 1950. Photo
shows all 25 living laureates who attended the ceremony seated
on stage while the King and other members of the Royal Family
joined the audience at the auditorium floor.Photo: AB Reportagebild

Seated in the front center were King Gustaf
VI Adolf, Queen Louise and the royal family: Prince Bertil,
Princess Sibylla and Prince Wilhelm. That morning, I had been
puzzled to note that the King, was to sit, not on the platform
with the officials and laureates, but on the auditorium floor
with the audience. Two informed people told me: "It is
traditional at Nobel Festivals for the King and the royal family
to honor the laureates by leaving the stage to them. Rising from
his seat placed just in front of the audience, the King welcomes
each recipient and is 'thus the first of the people' to honor
each prize winner." Assuming that my informants were correct, one
must agree that by these actions the King pays a most gracious
courtesy to the honored guests. Sitting in the front row just to
the left of the royal family was, to my delighted surprise, my
whole family. On the other side were Mrs. E. C. Kendall and other
relatives of the new recipients: Ruth Reichstein, Marianne Diels,
Mrs. Powell, Mrs. Walker, who is Professor Powell's sister, and
Jill Faulkner. In the second row center were the members of the
royal household, and in the next three rows were the prime
minister, the cabinet and the diplomatic corps.

The proceedings were opened by the
president of the Nobel Foundation, His Excellency, the Lord High
Steward, Dr. Ekeberg, who welcomed the royal family and guests,
and then paid a moving tribute to the Late King Gustaf V, who as
Crown Prince and King had presented personally almost all the
Nobel Awards during the last fifty years and who had so recently
died, on October 29, 1950, at the age of 92 years. During the
tribute everyone rose. Then Dr. Ekeberg reviewed briefly the life
of Alfred Nobel. For the radio and television audience he spoke
in Swedish. But in the programs, the addresses and citations were
printed in English, French or German.

The prizes were conferred in the order in
which they had been mentioned in Nobel’s will: first that
for physics, next that for chemistry, then the prize for
physiology and medicine and finally that for literature.
According to custom, Professor Cecil Powell of Bristol,
England, winner of the physics prize, remained seated during the
general citation or "proclamation" by his sponsor; then arose for
the direct citation (short address). As he descended the stairs
to receive the award the trumpeters again sounded the fanfare,
and the King rose and led in the applause as all on the stage and
in the auditorium rose to join in.

After Professor Otto Diels, of Kiel,
Germany, and Professor Kurt Alder, of
Cologne, received jointly the prize for chemistry, Professor
Liljestrand, secretary of the Nobel Committee of the Caroline
Institute and professor of pharmacology, explained the basis for
the 1950 awards in physiology and medicine. Unlike other
sponsors, he used no notes in making his citation, but spoke
dramatically and effectively memory. For fifteen minutes he
reviewed in Swedish the recent work on adrenal physiology and the
background of that work. Then, turning to the 3 recipients who
arose for the direct citation, he spoke to Dr. Kendall in
English, to Dr. Reichstein in German, to me in English, and then
to all three collectively in English.

Professor Liljestrand closed his address
with the traditional and stirring formula: "I now have the honor
of asking you to accept the Nobel Prize for 1950 from the hand of
His Gracious Majesty, the King." Then the 3 recipients started
down the stairs together, except for a momentary interruption as
the junior Rochester delegate tripped on the edge of a
carpet.

I have not not found out what the King said
to Dr. Kendall or vice versa. With a twinkle in his eye, Dr.
Kendall told me: "That's a secret." But I suspect that King
Gustaf Adolf asked Dr. Kendall: "How do you pronounce
17-hydrov-11-dehydrocorticosterone?"

After the awards were presented a more
worrisome duty had to be performed by the recipients. Passing on,
one was supposed to walk backwards about 15 to 20 feet, keeping
one's face to the royal family, until the steps leading back up
to the platform were reached. The motion pictures later revealed
clearly how successful or otherwise each recipient was in
accomplishing this feat. Having seen the motion pictures, I must
conclude that walking backward gracefully is not one of the
things well taught to members staff of the Mayo Clinic. But from
what I heard of the good humor and democratic instincts of King
Gustaf Adolf. I feel certain that he gave everyone an "A" for
effort.

Back in our seats, we took a quick look at
the diplomas and medals. Each medical diploma was encased in a
heavy blue leather folder, beautifully embossed. Inside, the 2
pages of the diploma were illustrated by colored hand drawings of
certain historic buildings in Stockholm. The Swedish lettering
beneath can be translated as follows: "The Royal Caroline
Medico-Chirurgical Institute which, according to the will which
was made on 27 November 1895, by Alfred Nobel, has the right to
reward with the Nobel Prize the most important discovery by which
the physiological and medical sciences have been guided in recent
times, has this day decided to award the 1950 prize to Philip S.
Hench, Edward C. Kendall and Tadeus Reichstein jointly for their
discoveries relating to adrenal cortical hormones, their
structure and biological effects. Stockholm, 26 October, 1950"
(the date the awards were voted). Immediately below the date are
the signatures of Rector Bergstrand and 32 of the 34 other
permanent voting faculty members who choose the recipients.

The medal, of almost pure gold, carries on
the obverse the Erik Lindberg profile of Alfred Nobel
(1833-I896). On the reverse the Spirit of Medicine, holding an
open book upon her knees, is collecting in a basin water
springing from a rock in order to quench the thirst of a sick
young maiden.

On a cartouche at the bottom is engraved
the recipient's name. Around the margin of all the Swedish Nobel
medals runs this
inscription from Vergil's Aeneid: Inventas vitam juvat
excoluisse per artes. This can be translated freely: "How
pleasant it is to see human life enriched by the inventiveness of
"

Two large overflow audiences of about 3,500
persons watched the ceremony on television in another auditorium
in the Concert Hall and in the near-by Royal Biographic Theater.
Between each of the presentations of awards symphonic music was
played beautifully by the Concert Hall orchestra relegated for
the occasion to the top balcony.

Concluding the ceremony was the
presentation of the prizes for literature. The belatedly awarded
1949 prize went to William Faulkner, the shy, quiet American
writer from Oxford Mississippi. The 1950 prize was given to Lord
Bertrand
Russell, the English writer, philosopher and mathematician, a
small, dynamic figure with chiseled features and flowing silver
hair. As the entire audience sang the Swedish National Anthem,
"Du gamla du fria," this part of the festivities ended.

The Nobel Banquet in the City Hall

Cars took us to Stadshuset, the City Hall,
one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. Because
about 1,000 people were to attend this fiftieth Jubilee Nobel
Banquet, it was held, not upstairs in the Gold Hall, as in recent
years, but downstairs in the Great Blue Hall. As the other guests
were being seated, the 270 honored guests assembled in the Gold
Hall and in the Prince's Gallery. Introduced by a fanfare from
trumpeters, dressed in medieval garb, the honored guests, to the
accompaniment of orchestral music, proceeded along the balcony
and down the marble stairs to their tables. At the head table,
Dr. Kendall was seated between Marshal Ekeberg's wife and Frau
von Laue; Mrs. Hench sat between Professor Powell and Bertrand
Russell. Mrs. Kendall's table-companion was Prime Minister Tage
Erlander. I was seated between the prime minister's wife, Fru
Aina Erlander and the foreign minister, Östen Undén.
Mrs. Kahler's escort was Professor Warburg, (prize winner in
medicine, 1931). At near-by tables sat Mrs. Albert J. Lobb; Mr.
Lobb represented the Mayo Foundation and his fellow regents of
the University of Minnesota. Also present was my former associate
at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Edward Rosenberg of Chicago, and Mrs.
Rosenberg, who honored us by making the journey to Stockholm with
us. My children were happy to sit with one of Alfred Nobel's
grand nieces and with Professor Domagk's daughter. Sixteen
members of the Nobel family were present.

The banquet itself was served in a
picturesque and colorful manner. Cooked by 70 people in the
kitchen, the food was distributed by 132 waiters and waitresses
with almost military precision under the supervision of 6
head-waitresses, a triumph in culinary logistics! As each new
course was to be served, the waiters appeared on the balcony and
to music marched in formation down the marble stairs and thence
to their assigned tables.

The table appointments, and decorations
were individualistic, and included tall candelabra alternating
with flowers and with smaller candle-holders each made in the
form of the letter
"N." One of the dramatic moments came at desert time. Suddenly,
except for the candles on the tables, all the lights in the Great
Blue Hall were extinguished. The orchestra struck up a lively
tune and 124 waiters appeared on the balcony, each carrying an
illuminated tray of sculptured ice cream. On each tray was a tall
figure made of clear ice: some were icy replicas of the City
Hall. Other waiters carried separate letters of the alphabet
carved in ice, consecutive waiters spelling out the names of the
different prizes: chemistry, physiology and medicine, etc. One
group of letters in ice spelled out Nobel 50 År
(years). Each iced figure was illuminated internally by electric
light bulbs of different colors which, with small batteries, had
been frozen inside the ice. The colorful procession was led by a
captain of waiters, who held on high, a large iced and internally
lighted figure of an eagle. "The whole made a magnificent
spectacle resembling an ice floe which slowly and majestically
swept down the stairway on the shoulders of the waiters"; thus
the procession was described in one newspaper.

Early during the banquet toasts were
proposed: one for His Majesty, the King, one in memory of Alfred
Nobel. Between courses Professor Robert Fåhraeus of the
department of pathology of the University of Uppsala gave the
main address of welcome to the laureates. Then, at various times
during and after the dinner, came brief acceptance speeches of
the new laureates in the following sequence: Russell, Kendall,
Hench, Reichstein, Diels, Alder, Powell, Faulkner. The trumpets
on the balcony would sound their fanfare. Then, after a moment of
disconcerting silence, the next speaker's name was announced over
the amplifiers. To give his acceptance speech each prize taker
had to rise from the head table, walk up eleven marble steps to a
rostrum on the first landing, then turn and face the awesome
assemblage. To climb those eleven stairs to that lonely rostrum
and to express one's deep feelings in an adequate and individual
manner to that distinguished audience, many of whom had on
previous occasions heard the acceptance speeches of some of the
world’s outstanding literary and scientific figures, was
one of the most difficult assignments one could ever be called
upon to fulfill. As Mr. Faulkner said "They make you earn the
prize all over again." But the warm and comforting sympathy of
the friendly audience lessened one's sense of inadequacy and
lonesomeness.

After the acceptance speeches the senior
laureate, von Laue, spoke for his colleagues of previous years.
Then a large choir of university students. with scholastic
banners assembled on the balcony. The chairman of the students'
association greeted the guests, speaking eloquently in perfect
English. In reply, Professor Powell gave an excellent impromptu
response. These amenities fulfilled, the choir serenaded the
audience with some splendid choral singing. As the finale the
choir marched, singing down the marble stairs, passed by the
tables and then disappeared down the long lower corridors of the
City Hall while their voices grew fainter and fainter. The
four-hour banquet ended about 11:30 p.m., after which a general
reception was held upstairs in the beautiful Gold Room with its
magnificent expanses of gold mosaic. After midnight there was
dancing in the Blue Hall until about 2:00 a.m. Thus ended a
memorable day.

At the the Nobel Banquet in the Blue Hall
of the Stockholm City Hall with Mrs. Aina Erlander, wife of
Prime Minister Tage Erlander. Also caught by the camera is
William Faulkner (off Philip Hench's shoulder).

Monday, 11 December

The next afternoon each recipient was
obliged to give an address before the appropriate awarding
institution. The medical recipients gave their "Nobel Lectures"

Between 6 and 8:00 p.m. the Nobel family gave a delightful dinner
for the laureates and their wives in the main banquet salon of
the Grand Hotel. Our senior hosts were Emil and Gustaf Nobel.
Each of the new laureates was honored by having one of the Nobel
ladies as a dinner companion. My own escort was Fru Viktor
(Gullevi) Nobel, who pleased her guests of several nationalities
by conversing animatedly with each in his native tongue.

Reception at the Palace

At 8:30 p.m. the royal family held a
reception at the palace for the laureates and their wives.
Customarily, the King and Queen give a formal banquet, but this
year the banquet was replaced by a less formal reception because
the court was officially in mourning.

The reception was very pleasant and
interesting. We collected in a large cheerful room with white
painted walls. Here the respective ambassadors took their
particular nationals in tow. Thus divided into small groups we
passed into the next room, a large affair with paintings, dark
tapestries and huge chandeliers. A tall, distinguished-looking
elderly man wearing decorations and a long very thin sword,
obviously a court officer or marshal of the court, checked his
list of guests with each ambassador. The groups lined up
irregularly according to an alphabetic arrangement: Allemagne
(Germany), America, Argentine, France, Great Britain, etc.

After the Kendalls went in, our names were
called and Mrs. Hench and I passed through a small anteroom to
meet the royal family: the King, the Queen, Princess Sibylla,
Prince Bertil, Prince Wilhelm. Without further introduction, King
Gustaf Adolf greeted me as "Professor Hench ... "which took
me back to the "professorial days" of my father. We had a nice
chat, discussing among other things the honorary degrees which my
alma mater, Lafayette College, had conferred on him and his wife
when, as Crown Prince and Princess, they had visited the United
States in 1938. As Mrs. Hench and I talked to the King and Queen
(she was a British Mountbatten and he speaks English perfectly),
the Kendalls were concluding their chat with the Princes.

After brief greetings with the rest of the
royal family we passed on into a very, long chamber, the Gallery
of Carolus XI, sometimes used for large royal banquets, where
certain ladies and gentlemen of the King’s household were
mingling with their guests. Food and drinks of various kinds were
being passed about. Almost at once a very pleasant man attached
himself to us to make us feel welcome. He was Mr. Erik
Sjöqvist, the King's secretary with the title 'cultural
attaché'.

For some reason, and despite the alphabet,
the British had been received last and the very last one to be
received had been Bertrand Russell. When he entered the reception
hall he noticed Mrs. Hench and came over to talk to us. He had
been Mrs. Hench's dinner companion the day before, and throughout
the whole festival he and my wife got along splendidly. He is a
cheerful, amusing man, very alert despite his 79 years.

At the conclusion of the two-hour
reception, the King and his family passed among their guests
making a circuit, bowing and bidding everyone goodnight.

Nobel Soirée at the National Museum

The evening was not over yet. About 10:30
p.m. we arrived at the National Museum (near the Grand
Hôtel) for a soirée given by the Nobel Foundation. Our
whole family had been invited, and Mrs. Kahler, Mary and Kahler
were there. Hundreds of Stockholm's citizens were on hand, all
formally dressed. People were sitting on the stairs and the
balconies to greet the laureates and their wives, whose arrival
was again announced with a fanfare by the peripatetic trumpeters.
Everyone arose in friendly greeting as we climbed the long flight
of stairs and joined the others. A lovely musical program was in
progress. A very good orchestra (La Société
d’Orchestre Académique de Stockholm) played various
numbers and the Academic Choir of Stockholm sang some beautiful
things which Kahler and I especially enjoyed. Later a soprano
with a delightful voice sang a group of lovely Swedish songs. At
about 11:15 p.m. a buffet supper was served in one of the
rooms.

Tuesday, 12 December

The Ambassador's Luncheon Party

At noon Ambassador and Mrs. Butterworth
gave a very pleasant small luncheon party at their home for the
Kendalls and the Henches. Thev had sent us invitations to a
reception they were to give for the Bunches on the following
Saturday, but we could not remain in Stockholm that long. A few
weeks before, when Dr.
Bunche and a few other American laureates had been invited to
the Research Corporation dinner party for the Kendalls and
Henches in New York, Dr. Bunche unexpectedly had to remain in
Washington. Thus, unfortunately, Dr. Kendall and I have not yet
met him.

Late in the afternoon Dr. Kendall and I
went to a one-day-early Lucia party given by Professor
Liljestrand in his laboratory.

Dinner Party of Professor Svartz

That evening, Nanna Svartz, professor of
medicine at the Caroline Institute (and a member of the Nobel
Subcommittee of two which had reviewed and presented the work on
cortisone before the committee and faculty), gave a fine dinner
party for the Kendalls, the Reichsteins, Mrs. Kahler, and the
whole Hench family. Professor Svartz' husband is the
pediatrician, Professor Nils Malmberg; their daughter, Gunvor,
was very kind to our children. Also present were the Lobbs and
Rosenbergs; Professor and Mrs. Domagk and their daughter; 3 or 4
other local professors and their wives, and 3 young medical
students, one of whom had received his degree that very day.

Wednesday, 13 December

Of other delightful official and private
events I can only mention one in closing - the Lucia
festival, which provided a pleasant anti-climax to our week in
Stockholm. The legend of Lucia honors the spirit of
Christian charity and celebrates the beauty of light. It is
widely celebrated in the Scandinavian countries on December 13,
one of the shortest and darkest days of the year. The
Lucia festivities are held not only as civic affairs but
also in most homes and offices.

The main feature this year in Stockholm was
to be a civic event in the City Hall, the "crowning" of
"Lucia of Stockholm, Queen of Light." The King is one of
the sponsors of the event, which is underwritten annually by one
of the large Stockholm corporations; in recent years it has been
managed by the Stockholm's Tidningen, one of the leading
newspapers. Because the money raised this year was to be used for
rheumatic children, the committee had asked me to "crown"
Lucia at the evening ceremony, the invitation having been
cabled to me in November through Docent Gunnar Edström, of
the University of Lund, whom I had met on several occasions and
who had entertained Mrs. Hench and me at his home in 1948.

The Lucia Festival, City Hall

In the evening about 2,000 people including
the diplomatic corps and their distinguished guests attended the
civic Lucia festival. It was really a fine, dignified
ceremony, semi-religious and partly social. First, everyone
gathered in the Blue Hall. Completing a street parade through
city the Lucia of Stockholm and her attendants reached the
City Hall. The young Lucia (Miss Elisabeth
Meyerhöffer) is an authentic Swedish beauty, with blond hair
and perfect features. She also has poise, charm and personality.
As she and her attendants slowly entered the Great Blue Hall they
were followed by a choir of boys, singing. My hosts and I waited
to meet Lucia on the first landing of the marble stairs.
As she drew near I noticed a man in a dark suit walking
unobtrusively just a few feet behind her. He was carrying a wet
towel just in case Lucia's hair caught fire from her crown
of lighted (real) candles. Such an accident occasionally occurs.
To forestall it, the top of the girl's head usually is covered
with a thin protection of some sort, and some people are
resorting to crowns of electric lights for the chosen daughter of
the family to wear for the early morning family celebrations.

After the lovely Lucia of Stockholm
joined us on the stair landing with her attendants arranged on
the lower steps, I was introduced to give my little talk. But
during the day I had developed a very hoarse sore throat. So with
the approval of my hosts, Kahler gave the speech for me and did
very well indeed. Perhaps some of you heard him, for the affair
was broadcast over Swedish radio stations and re-broadcast to the
United States for transcription in connection with certain
Swedish-American Lucia celebrations.

After Kahler's talk I hung a jewelled
pendant around Lucia's neck. Then a boy soprano sang a
lovely air in Latin. Soon, about 600 people adjourned upstairs to
the banquet in the Gold Hall. Dancing began in the Great Blue
Hall. After the banquet a reception in the Gold Hall and the
dancing downstairs continued long after midnight.

Our family had been formally invited to
visit the Lucia fest of the Medical Student's Union. About 2:00
a.m. we went to the Student's party with Dr. Edström's
daughter, Fru Marianne Westrup, and Mr. Oscar Rosander, the
Swedish cousin of one of my boyhood friends, where we received a
friendly welcome.

Vale

In retrospect, that which made the
greatest, most lasting impression upon us all was the amazing
spirit of friendship and the truly gracious hospitality which
were shown to those who participated in this Nobel Jubilee, not
only by our hosts of the Nobel Foundation and of the
prize-awarding institutions, and by the citizens of Stockholm,
but by the royal family, the government and diplomatic corps and
indeed by the whole Swedish and Scandinavian people. My family
and I have also sincerely appreciated the friendly interest which
so many of our home folk have expressed to us these past months.
For this we shall always owe the people of Sweden and our home
folk our unmeasured thanks.

* Reprinted from Proceedings of the Staff Meetings of the Mayo
Clinic 26:417-437 (Nov. 7) 1951. This paper was presented at a
meeting of the general staff of the Mayo Clinic on the
evening of February 7, 1951.

1. Dr. Bernardo
Houssay, Prize winner in 1947, and his wife arrived from
Argentina two days later.

2. Dr. Ralph J.
Bunche, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1950, was not present
at this Stockholm ceremony, since the peace prize is awarded by
the Norwegian Storting (Parliament); he received his prize in
Oslo on the same day, December 10, and was received in Stockholm
a few days later.